Author: The Bardo Group Beguines

The focus of "The BeZine," a publication of The Bardo Group Beguines, is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We share work here that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.” This is a space where we hope you’ll delight in learning how much you have in common with “other” peoples. We hope that your visits here will help you to love (respect) not fear. For more see our Info/Mission Statement Page.

poetry

Four Poems by Diana Raab

Posted on March 25, 2020March 14, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Elegant Air

I inhale breaths and ethers
……….. offered by this place,
……yet wonder where in this universe
………………………………..lies the rest of my needed oxygen.
…………………………………………I cannot help but wonder as I
………………………………………………….separate myself from its beauty.

You Remember

You remember my voice
even though I have

long ago peeled myself
from you, your shoulder,

on that crisp autumn day
while the pungent smell

of burning leaves
fell from our sky.

Your voice still resonates
even though

I am in that other world
because this one

have transitioned
no longer serves

nor wants to witness us—
a love that’s so deep.

Will you accompany me
to this final refuge?

Renewal Welcomed

I want to be saved from disease,
natural disasters and psychic pain
or whatever might slip
a frown upon my face
or on the face of my beloveds.

Save me from fires and mudslides
which only yesterday
ripped through our neighborhood,
and cancers which swim in my genetic pools,

or massive shooters
who want to end it all
and coyotes
who want to snatch our dogs away.

There are so many ways
to be saved and renewed,
so go ahead write a book about me,
and share secrets of your own renewal

in a sanctuary to call yours,
as I sulk in my darkness.

Buddha Skin

People whisper in my ears
to remind me of my Buddha skin—

enlightened wisdom to share
with friends and strangers,

through green eye glances
or words strung across blank pages,

but somehow I remain unable
to tap into the distance which separates you and me.

Are you able touch the chaotic chasm
which divides us from melted fusions

of different color skins or anything
which might possibly bring us together

in what many might call
the most mysterious of unions?

DIANA RAAB, MFA, PhD (dianaraab.com), is a poet, memoirist, and blogger, speaker, and award-winning author of nine books. Her work has been published and anthologized in over 1000 publications. Raab blogs for Psychology Today, Thrive Global, and Wisdom Daily and is a guest blogger for many others. She has four poetry collections, including Lust. Her latest books are Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Program for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life and Writing for Bliss: A Companion Book.

General Interest

‘hamsa’

Posted on March 24, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

What could be more lovely? A little something this evening from Zine team friend, Gretchen Del Rio. Enjoy …

Gretchen Del Rio's Art Blog

watercolor 3/2020

The swan known as Hamsa in Hindu mythology is said to be the vehicle of the goddess Saraswati…..patroness of wisdom, learning music and the arts. Or they may be one and the same. That would make Hamsa the divine swan-maiden.

purchase this painting

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Poems/Poetry

Three poems by Kirsty A. Niven

Posted on March 24, 2020March 14, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Luna

When lilac clouds conquer the sky,
it’s easy to forget she exists.
The moon lurks behind its thick veil,
a lunar laugh rising in her throat.
Flanked by the flashes of constellations,
she has nothing to fear.

I can still feel her watchful eyes
critiquing every word, every movement.
Our content orbit an object of fascination,
a concept she cannot understand.
Her glow extinguished, albeit temporarily,
a simple streetlight can have its spotlight.

She can only look on in wonder.
The days of bullets and blitzkriegs
when we cross paths are over.
The starry battlefield, silent and empty.
And no one else remembers,
except the moon and I.

One Night

In the still of the night the moment pauses.
Heartbeats hushed. Voices lost to lust.
This dead end dark could make me anyone.
I’m sure that’s the only reason you’re here.
Lips continue on regardless, not caring anymore;
happy to be broken, just to feel something.

Light interrupts. Lust flees. Life rushes on.
I can never be the girl that you want.
Fluorescence ravages that illusion instantly.
No parts of our bodies are touching anymore
and the familiar numbness settles in again.
Your voice ends it with words I forget.

Bird On The Wire

My twig feet dither on this tight rope,
desperate to wobble away to freedom.
Talons cling and my drunken heart sings,
taking my life into my feathered fingers.

It is so far down to fall with fractured wings
and I’ve hurt so many just to get here.
Apologies tweet from my open beak,
I am just trying in my way to be free.

KIRSTY A. NIVEN lives in Dundee, Scotland. Her writing has appeared in anthologies such as Strength, The Alien Buddha’s Feminist Agenda and Landfall. She has also featured in several journals and magazines, including The Poet’s Republic, Cicada Magazine, Monstrous Regiment and Silk + Smoke. Kirsty’s work can also be found online on sites such as La Scrittrice, Anti-Heroin Chic and Poetry Breakfast.”

Poems/Poetry

Four Poems by Joan McNerney

Posted on March 23, 2020March 13, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Amazing How
Only last Thursday
after another morning
of clichés
as freezing winds pushed
us along grey avenues
you shouted my name
in the middle of 34th Street
calling me poet
and instantly mountains
of mediocrity were melted
by your smile.

A glimpse of spring

shy blue morning

black trees etch sky

children skipping

over puddles

bramble on snow

soft birdsong

listening to water

race downstream

winds gently kiss

my forehead

grass shoots push

through first thaw

Trees of Heaven

Those are tough trees

growing in slums.

With no need of rich soil

or pruning, they rise

in abandoned lots.

These are trees that

survive rubbish, rodents

noxious chemicals.

Not easily cut down,

they stand against

gaunt tenements.

Climbing skyward,

delicate palm leaves

flourish flowering pods.

Trees of Heaven give

children glimpses of bright

emerald each morning.

Stars play peek-a-boo

between their branches

through long nights.

Who has said a taste of

paradise is only for the rich?

Imagine

Imagine to be a bird

slicing air with wings.

Up up over that horizon

soaring through clouds

away from solemn earth.

Shining, shimmering

far above this sphere

into clear blue light.

Cutting through sky

gliding over oceans

eyes open all seeing.

Awake all day all night

brushing rushing

against the four winds.

Imagine to be a bird.

JOAN McNERNEY’s poetry has been included in many literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Poet Warriors, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Spectrum Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title, The Muse In Miniature, is available on Amazon.com and Cyberwit.net. She has four Best of the Net nominations.

General Interest

Nightlight

Posted on March 22, 2020March 14, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

I wake up drenched. Hair matted to my forehead with damp, cheek sticking to the pillow. I’ve known cold sweats before – I’ve been waking up with them my whole adult life – but this is one of the worst.
And I can understand why. Because, unlike some that fade away within seconds, this dream, those images, those noises, are all still flashing and sounding in front of me like a Halloween display. Horror come vividly to life, lingering as though I were still there watching and listening to it happen. I gasp in air, briefly frightened by the wall of darkness surrounding me. Just for an instant, that old fear, that dread that’s clung to me since childhood, rises up to break over me like a wave. Every part of me bracing for it. Tears already pooling in my eyes as I wait for the crash.

.
And then the light blinks on. Behind my shoulder, immediately casting its pale blue glow onto the bedroom wall. Illuminating the shadow of my head, complete with messy, sodden hair, even as I turn a fraction in the direction of the beam.

.
‘Shit,’ he mutters, strengthening the brightness of the phone as I turn round further, and see the screen lighting up his face as he finally swipes the bar across to full power. And instead of the terror I was preparing for only a moment ago, a wave of soaring relief crashes over me instead, as he shifts his eyes towards me and arches an eyebrow apologetically. ‘Forgot I’d dimmed down earlier. Took a moment to figure out why I could barely see anything.’

.
I almost let out a sob at the selflessness behind the words. No suggestion that he might actually have been asleep, that he might not have heard the scream that tore from my throat as I came out of the dream, that he might have been resting more deeply tonight. He’s never once not stirred at exactly the same moment I have, his body ever on alert for any hint of my distress, even in the middle of the night. He frowns slightly as he notices my eyes watering, before reaching out a finger to brush away the one escaping tear. Brushing away the images of those homophobic bastards kicking him half to death and forcing me to watch it with one simple touch. Like the breaking of a dark spell. Bringing me back to him, and only him.

.
‘Got you pretty bad tonight, huh?’ he asks, smiling sadly. ‘It’s okay.’

..
‘I know,’ I whisper. I always know. I always feel okay as soon as I see him again. Alive. Well. In my bed. Staring at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.

.
‘What about his one?’ he asks, showing me the screen. I glance at it, and nod. A think of something starting with… game. ‘Looks interesting.’

.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Think of something starting with I.’

.
I love you.

.
More and more every night.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE is a Northern Irish writer and a graduate of English from Queen’s University Belfast. He was also graduated with an MA in TV Fiction Writing at Glasgow Caledonian University. Alongside a number of playwriting achievements, including being longlisted for the 2019 Bruntwood Prize, he’s had a number of pieces of short fiction read, performed and published around the UK, Ireland and US over the last few years.

Photography/Photographer

Photography by Ann Privateer

Posted on March 21, 2020March 14, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

ANN PRIVATEER is a poet, artist, and photographer. Some of her work has appeared in Third Wednesday, Manzanita, and Entering to name a few.

Domestic Abuse, news/events

A Man, A Woman, and A Stick, a poem; Social Distancing and Victims of Domestic or Sexual Violence [Resources]

Posted on March 19, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

A purple ribbon to promote awareness of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Prevention courtesy of MesserWoland – CC BY-SA 3.0

a man, a woman, and a stick

(1921)

the stick stood in the corner of the kitchen
a constant threat; stoking, as it was meant to,
chronic intimidation

he had a man’s right to deliver his blows
to vent his anger and his self-contempt
to cause suffering for the insufferable

someone had to make it up to him,
his loss-of-face to race, creed and poverty

for her part, eve’s daughter was ripe,
shamed by her intrinsic sinfulness,
worn by her constant pregnancies

her femininity: tired and task-bound,
guilt flowing freely, as all-consuming as lava

[relief, only in death]

and the seventh child was born to die
and the man was demanding his bread

she wrapped the girl in swaddling cloth,
placed her gently by the stove, and
while the newborn made busy with dying,
the woman prepared him his meal

While we are being directed to quarantine ourselves in the sensible effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, it is easy to forget that home is not a safe place for everyone. Domestic abuse happens and the stress of these times is likely to exacerbate that impulse. Here are some resources if you are in this situation or know someone in this situation. A link is included for a directory of every country’s domestic and sexual violence agency,. These are courtesy of Maggie Royer, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Persephone’s Daughters Magazine. [Recommended]

Courtesy of Maggie:

1. We are spreading awareness on our social media pages of the unique impacts of COVID-19 on domestic and sexual violence survivors using the hashtag #MakeHomesHavens. Please feel free to use this hashtag and share information as well from our Twitter: https://twitter.com/persephonesmag

2. We are building a By Survivors, For Survivors COVID-19 Self-Care List. During this time, media coverage of the virus is overwhelming and may trigger panic and anxiety among survivors already experiencing trauma. How can we take care of ourselves during this time? If you identify as a survivor and would like to share your self-care ideas here anonymously, please do! We will compile and share via social media, website, and newsletter.
PersephonesDaughters.sarahah.com

3. Our March newsletter will focus specifically on providing calm and peace from anxiety. We know this is a time of uncertainty, and our newsletter will reflect ways to cope with that.

4. We are sharing links to coverage that focuses on how the virus is impacting survivors. Please read and share.

How Coronavirus Is Affecting Domestic Violence Victims (TIME)

Home Is Not a Safe Place for Everyone (Huffington Post)

Coronavirus Social Distancing: Bad News for Domestic Violence Victims (LA Times)

Staying Safe During COVID-19 (National Domestic Violence Hotline)

5. We are offering information for how to support your domestic and sexual violence programs during this. For a directory of every country’s domestic and sexual violence agency, please visit Hot Peach Pages. Programs may need the following support: financial donations, in-kind donations of sanitary products, toilet paper, disinfectant, and cleaning supplies, and as always, your calls to legislators to support their work.

RELATED:

#MeToo: rallying against sexual assault and harassment, a women’s poetry anthology” edited by Deborah Alma; “Persephone’s Daughters,” empowering readers and writes who’ve experience gendered abuse

The Return of Persephone, c.1891 (oil on canvas) by Leighton, Frederic (1830-96); 203×152 cm; Leeds Museums and Galleries (City Art Gallery) U.K.; English, public domain

PERSEPHONE’S DAUGHTERS is published online, in print and in film. This magazine’s content is based on a mission to empower women / femme individuals who have experienced various forms of gendered abuse (sexual, emotional, physical, racial, verbal, etc), or other forms of degradation (harassment, catcalling, threats, etc). Persephone’s Daughters welcomes all identities.

Online Sunday Stories feature personal accounts of those surviving abuse. There is also a film submission category that aligns with the mission. Accepted works are featured online on Film Fridays. Of note is a post-election mini-issue, a writing and art collection by people who are negatively effected by the outcome of the 2016 U.S. election. Proceeds from the sales of that collection go to the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, which provides services, legal help, and advocacy to unaccompanied immigrant children fleeing trafficking, conflict, poverty and more.

Poems/Poetry

Scars

Posted on March 19, 2020March 14, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

If you’d walked the doorway of my mind
and saw my light surrender
to darkness
Saw that sneaky twin twined in creation
Your indifferent lips would’ve dared not call me a psycho and a nutcase

If you’d understood how death strays not from its constancy
And how no eye peeks wholly, at what roams in tomorrow’s heart
Remembering this, should’ve caused
you to cultivate compassion
and dared not label me the cursed or possessed one

If you’d believed how every bit and piece of your being
is vulnerable to breakdown in its order, one time or other
You would’ve seen how you too could be a victim like me
to mistakes or misadventures
and dared not call me a wacko

If you had bore scars; glaring or unseen/ some real or perceived
and had been shackled up and forced
to gaze at dancing images of gloom
Cobwebs warped around your head
in symphony of thundering voices
You would’ve dared not call me a loose cannon

If you’d looked hard and saw how thinly the lines runs
Between your ability to stand and stumble; speak or fumble
In just a slip or flip of fate , or flip or flop in your securities
You’d have dared not call me a loose bolt and cuckoo in the head

Your nonchalances, my dear friend,
would’ve neither sent me down
the abyss
nor let your sensitivity hear my silent screams
and not catch me before my catastrophic fall
Your little sympathy to inject belief
Into my disbelief
would’ve been the ultimate relief to my torment
From one who’d dared not call me
A knuckleball, a schizo and a zombie

® 2020, Samuella Conteh

SAMUELLA J. CONTEH is from Sierra Leone, West Africa. She is a writer, poet, dramatist and motivational speaker. She is a member of the Sierra Leone Writers Forum and Member of Board of PEN-SL. She is also President of the International African Writers Association in Sierra Leone.

Samuella’s poems and short stories have been featured in several national and international anthologies.

She has also received many awards including the Medal of Ambassador de Literature (ADL), Award of World Poetic Star, Award of Mahatma Medal, and most recently, the Order Of Shakespeare (OOS).

Samuella is also a member of the Motivational Strips Academy of Literary Excellence and Wisdom (MSALEW).

Poems/Poetry

Moonlight Closeness

Posted on March 18, 2020March 13, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

When the moon is full,
wondering where you are,
I will look up,
tears will play, glisten
freely on my cheeks,
knowing moon’s silver
cloak covers, warms us both,
bringing me closer to you
than we ever were before.

JOAN LEOTTA lays with words on page and stage. Her motto is to produce
“encouraging words through Pen and Performance.” Her poems, essays, short stories and articles have been widely published. Her poetry has appeared in Stanzaic Stylings, Peacock Review, Creative Inspirations, and other journals. Her performances of tales of food, family, and strong women have entertained audiences at fairs, in schools, libraries , and museums. When she is not at the computer or on stage, you can find her reading a book, walking the beach, or traveling to be with family.

The BeZine, The BeZine Table of Contents

The BeZine, Vol. 7, Issue 1, Waging Peace

Posted on March 15, 2020March 8, 2021 by The Bardo Group Beguines

“. . . I don’t understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people in the same little world that we live in.” Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

My Aunt Julie once said that it is easier to love than hate. She was a good woman, a diamond in the rough and I believe her. I believe it takes less energy to love (respect) others than it does to hate them and that honest appreciation of differences is actually our own best protection: today the hate is directed at “those people” and tomorrow it is directed at me and you. This is the way the world turns in the hands of the spin-meisters. They love nothing so much as pitting us against one another for their own gain and it is ALWAYS for their gain, not ours, make no mistake.

The BeZine is devoted to featuring the commonalities within the diversities. Our contributors and our core team of writers, artists, photographers, activists, philosophers and clerics represent a wealth of countries, cultures, religions, and first languages. We may not agree on the exact path or paths to peace but we agree that violence and hate are not the ways. We see no reason to be threatened because someone speaks another language, enjoys a different cuisine, celebrates different holy days, dresses differently, or is seeking safe haven in our countries. We have no desire to further victimize the victims. Our hearts are open to civil discourse and our hands ready to embrace and support. I am not writing this from a position of moral superiority but from a practical position of self-concern and regard. There are profound lessons in the trauma of the 2020 pandemic. It highlights just how unified we are in our vulnerabilities and how we are only as strong as the weakest among us. This crisis also points to the fundamental amorality of many among our politicians, governments, and businesses, lest here-to-fore you’ve been inclined not to judge.

In February 2011, I started this site and we now celebrate nine years of contributing to the Peace in our small but earnest way. The BeZine is possible thanks to the support of our core team and our contributors and readers, now approaching 7,000.

Beginning on April 1, 2020, American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play), will move from the position of contributing editor to co-managing editor with me. I am pleased and appreciate Michael’s prodigious talent, support, enthusiasm, and many contributions to the success of this effort.

We are opening the Zine blog to poetry for the entire month of April, officially Poetry Month. Womawords Literary Press, the heart-child of Zimbabwean poet in exhile, Mbizo Chirasha (Mbizo, The Black Poet), is the sponsor. Watch our Calls for Submission on this site and The Poet by Day for details and our new submission email address. While we cannot compensate contributors, neither do we charge submission or subscription fees. This is labor of love.

We continue in 2020 with our quarterly publications:

June 15, SustainABILITY;
September 15, Social Justice; and
December 15, A Life of the Spirit.

As is our tradition, on the fourth Saturday of September we will host Virtual 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change (100TPC) with Michael Dickel as master of ceremonies. As the year continues to unfold, we may host other events or special issues. Meanwhile, please enjoy this edition of The BeZine and don’t forget to share links on social media and to like and comment in support of our valued contributors.

In the spirit of love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines,
Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor

To read this edition of The BeZine, link HERE to scroll through or click on the links below to view individual contributions.

BeATTITUDES

Elusive Peace, Tamam Tracy Moncur
A Palace of Bird Beaks, Naomi Baltuck
Strange Fire, Michael Dickel

“I wasn’t born for an age like this.” George Orwell

A Little Poem, George Orwell
Translations, Mbizo Chirasha

FLASH FICTION

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” Albert Camus

1919 – A Story of Peacetime, Joe Hesch

WRITING PEACE

“Poetry. It’s better than war!” Michael Rothenberg, cofounder of 100TPC

To Write A Peace Poem, Michael Dickel

POETRY

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

Together, J J Aitken
No More Numbing, J J Aitken

Big Mama Is Dancing on the Purple Tide, Mendes Biondo

Wars Whirling, Worsening World, Anjum Wasim Dar
Make a Vow, Remember, Anjum Wasim Dar
Hope and Wishes, Anjum Wasim Dar

Paper Boat, Judy DeCroce
This is not Paradise nor a Place to be Lost, Judy DeCroce
Before, Judy DeCroce

through the ache of time, Jamie Dedes
pulsing peace, Jamie Dedes
At a Peace Reading, Jamie Dedes

Another Protest Song, Michael Dickel

Drear, Anita East

Bizarre, Mike Gallagher

Search, Kakali Das Ghosh

Reprieve, Robert Gluck

the full moon’s light, Ed Higgins
refugees, Ed Higgins
Epistemology, Ed Higgins

Good Vibrations, Linda Imbler

By what right?, Magdalena Juskiewicz

The Path of Empathy, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
Out of Sight, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Waging Peace, Charles W. Martin

Let Peace Be the Journey, Neelam Shah

Global Forest, Ankh Spice

“When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” Fred Rogers

The BeZine: Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be

Daily Spiritual Practice: Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People

Facebook

Twitter, The Bardo Group Beguines

SUBMISSIONS:

Read Info/Mission Statement, Submission Guidelines, and at least one issue before you submit. Updates on Calls for Submissions and other activities are posted on the Zine blog and The Poet by Day.

General Interest

loves fiercely

Posted on March 10, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

A beautiful watercolor from Zine friend, Gretchen Del Rio, and a good prayer for all our days.

Gretchen Del Rio's Art Blog

watercolor 2/2020

O’ Great Spirit

help me always

to speak the truth quietly,

and to remember the peace

that may be found in silence.

……..Cherokee Prayer

purchase this painting

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disability/illness

At Last: U.S. Social Security Administration “Modernizes” Its Disability Rule for Non-English Speaking Workers

Posted on February 26, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul announced a new final rule today, modernizing an agency disability rule that was introduced in 1978 and has remained unchanged. The new regulation, “Removing the Inability to Communicate in English as an Education Category,” updates a disability rule that was more than forty years old and did not reflect work in the modern economy. This final rule has been in the works for a number of years and updates an antiquated policy that makes the inability to communicate in English a factor in awarding disability benefits.

“It is important that we have an up-to-date disability program,” Commissioner Saul said. “The workforce and work opportunities have changed and outdated regulations need to be revised to reflect today’s world.”

A successful disability system must evolve and support the right decision as early in the process as possible. Social Security’s disability rules must continue to reflect current medicine and the evolution of work.

Social Security is required to consider education to determine if someone’s medical condition prevents work, but research shows the inability to communicate in English is no longer a good measure of educational attainment or the ability to engage in work. This rule is another important step in the agency’s efforts to modernize its disability programs.

In 2015, Social Security’s Inspector General recommended that the agency evaluate the appropriateness of this policy. Social Security owes it to the American public to ensure that its disability programs continue to reflect the realities of the modern workplace. This rule also supports the Administration’s longstanding focus of recognizing that individuals with disabilities can remain in the workforce.

The rule will be effective on April 27, 2020.

disability/illness

Three Poems by Assamese Poet Guna Moran, Translation Courtesy of Bibekananda Choudhury

Posted on February 25, 2020February 26, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

SNAKE

I frisson on seeing a snake

As if the long venomous tongue jutting out
Would bite me lethally
Instantly on seeing

But the number of death
Bitten by long pointed tongues
As thousand time less
Than the number killed by
Blunt tongues

Failure far exceeds the achievements
The fear of losing in achievement
is not there in failure

As the fact
How heartbreaking s the sorrow
Of losing after having
Compared to
Not having at all
Is vivid in memory of the snake
It juts out its long forked tongue
So that none can settle at a desolate corner of its heart

The tongue is the impenetrable sentinel
Of the inner world of the snake
Visitor takes to its heels
On seeing the guard
But snake do not chase to bite anyone

Actually
All the snakes are innocent
We are indeed
Panicky

SLEEP

Sleep is bliss
Death is bliss too

The first one is not permanent like the second
But the transitory is favoured to the permanent

Fatigue after gratification
Sleep after fatigue
Gratification possible following sleep
Gratification impossible after death
That is the reason
The second one is everyone’s favourite

We are basically punters
Punters need more sleep

ILLNESS

Now

She cooks meals
I devour

She washes the clothes
I put on

She is responsible for
Fetching the children
To and fro from school

She is responsible for
Receiving guests and relatives

Marriage and functions
Meetings and discussions
Are her responsibility

She is like a bobbin
Since waking up
Till retiring to bed at night

I just give a call at time
She appears in a whiff

That I fell in love one day
I forget altogether

GUNA MORAN is an Assamese poet and critic. His poems and literary pieces are published in national and international magazines, journals, webzines, newspapers and anthologies such as –
(i) Tuck magazine (ii) Merak (iii) Spillword (iv) Setu (v)Story Mirror (vi) Glomag (vii) Poem Hunter
(viii) The Sentinel (ix) The Hills Times (x) Litinfinte (xi) Best Poetry (xii)Academy of the Heart and Mind (xiii) The Creation times (xiv)Infinite sky (xv) International Anthology of Poems on Autism (xvi) International Anthology on Water (Waco Fest Anthology 2019) (xvii) International anthology on TIME (xviii) THE VASE : 12th Guntur International Poetry Fest Anthology 2019. (xix) POETICA : The Inner Circle Writer’s Group Poetry Anthology 2019 (xx) Nocturne (poetry of the Night, An Anthology). (xxi) Phantasmagoria Magazine.Apart from this, his poems have been translated into Italian and French, Bangla language also.

BIBEKANANDA CHOUDHURY, an electrical engineer by profession working with the State Government of Assam has completed his Masters from BITS-Pilani. He has also earned a diploma in French language from Gauhati University. He has got published works (both original and translated) in Assamese, Bengali & English in popular periodicals and newspapers. His translated poems have been published in ‘Indian Literature’, the bi-monthly journal of sahitya akademy. ‘Suryakatha’, the Bengali adaptation done by him of the is being taught in the undergraduate Courses of Banglore University and Post graduate Courses of Gauhati University. A collection of 101 folk tales from the foothillsof Patkai translated by him has also been taken up by publication by Gauhati University. He is presently the editor-in-chief of Dimorian Review a multidisciplinary web journal.

Illness/life-threatening illness, Poems/Poetry

Cancerland

Posted on February 23, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Out with the old, in with the new could

apply if refers to surgery to remove

urinary bladders all studded with tumors

that don’t respond to chemotherapy

administered intravesically through thick

catheters oy ugh inserted in penises.

With this dim prospect of employing such

a big procedure which’d fashion

a bit of large colon into a fresh sterile sac,

one realizes how much we have

now bonded with previously unnoticed

unloved taken-for-granted organs.

Well-wishers offer hope old receptacles

and us, after many happy years

together, reconcile relations, start to work

out existing problems — or if not

in cards dealt, resolve to divorce benignly

before move on to new partners.

GERARD SARNAT is a poet, physician, executive, academic and social activist. Gerry is an MD who’s built and staffed homeless and prison clinics as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently Gerry is devoting energy/ resources to work with internationally known and recognized leaders addressing global warming.

Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize and was nominated for Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is published in academic-related journals including University of Chicago, Stanford, Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Arkansas, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, Slippery Rock, Appalachian State, Grinnell, American Jewish University, Sichuan University, University of Edinburgh and University of Canberra. Gerry’s writing has also appeared widely including recently in such U.S. outlets as Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, poetica, American Journal Of Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Circle, Every Day Poems, Clementine, Tiferet, Foliate Oak, Failed Haiku, New Verse News, Blue Mountain Review, Danse Macabre, Canary Eco, Fiction Southeast, Military Experience and the Arts, Poets And War, Cliterature, Qommunicate, Texas Review, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, The Los Angeles Review and The New York Times. Pieces have also been accepted by Chinese, Bangladeshi, Hong Kongese, Singaporian, Canadian, English, Irish, Scotch, Australian, New Zealander, Australasian Writers Association, Zimbabwean, French, German, Indian, Israeli, Romanian, Swedish, Moscovian and Fijian among other international publications. Mount Analogue selected KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY for pamphlet distribution nationwide on Inauguration Day 2017. Amber Of Memory was chosen for the 50th Harvard reunion Dylan symposium. He’s also authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), and Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids, five grandsons with a sixth on the way and looking forward to future granddaughters.

news/events

Adults Unintentionally Make It Easy for Young Children to Eat Dangerous Pills

Posted on February 22, 2020February 20, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Each year there are about 400,000 poison center calls and 50,000 ER visits as a result of young children ingesting medications when adults weren’t paying attention. A new study finds that more than half of the time when children get into prescription pills, the medication had already been removed from the child-resistant container by an adult.

The findings come from a study of calls to five U.S. poison control centers by researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emory University School of Medicine, and the Georgia Poison Center. The study appears this week in The Journal of Pediatricsexternal icon.

“These data suggest it may be time to place greater emphasis on encouraging adults to keep medicines in containers with child-resistant features,” says the study’s senior author, Daniel Budnitz, M.D., MPH, of CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. “There is an opportunity here for innovative medication container options that promote adult adherence and provide portability and convenience, while maintaining child safety.”

Child-resistant packaging keeps kids safe – but only when pills are inside

The current study found four common scenarios in which young children get into prescription pills after the pills are out of their original containers:

Removed to remember to take as prescribed: Adults put pills into pill organizers that are not child-resistant.
Removed for ease of travel or transport: Adults put pills into baggies or other small containers that are not child-resistant to carry with them.
Removed for convenience: Adults leave pills out on countertops or on a bedside table for someone to take later.
Removed unintentionally: Adults sometimes spill or drop pills and may miss some when picking them up.

The most common scenarios varied by type of medication. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications (49%) and opioids (43%) were more often not in any container when found by young children. Diabetes drugs (34%) and cardiac medications (31%) were more often transferred to alternate containers such as pill organizers or baggies. Nonprescription medications were most often accessed from the original containers, but for many of these medications, child-resistant packaging is not required because of low potential for toxicity.

Grandparents’ pill organizers often involved

Investigators also asked whose pills the children were getting into. Most of the time, the children got into their parents’ pills. However, for some prescription medications that can be very harmful to young children in small amounts (e.g., diabetes or cardiac medications), over half belonged to grandparents. Therefore, it will be important to remind grandparents, as well as parents, about the importance of keeping medications up and away and out of the reach and sight of children.

CDC recommends keeping medications in the original child-resistant packaging. If one must remove pills from their original containers, a few precautions can help keep children safe:

Use a container that is child resistant.
Securely re-close the container after every use.
Put the container up and away and out of a child’s reach and sight immediately after every use.
Keep purses, other bags, or pockets with medicines in them up and away from young children.
If pills are spilled when taking or transferring medications, double-check to make sure that all pills are picked up.
Save the Poison Help number in your phone – (800) 222-1222 – and call right away if you think your child might have gotten into a medicine or a vitamin, even if you are not sure.

For more information on what parents and grandparents can do to safely store their medications, visit: https://www.cdc.gov/features/medicationstorage/index.html and UpandAway.orgexternal icon.

Illness/life-threatening illness, Poems/Poetry

Antibiotic Blues

Posted on February 19, 2020February 23, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

I’m bulbling, bumbling like a dumb blond(e) from the Golden Age of Hollywood
without the figure
or the yellow locks,
a himbo who isn’t very beau.
How can a petite podwery, poerdy, poderwy-
POWDERY damn it
wite, white pill-or is it the pinkish-bluish capsule with the cryptic digits-
besiege a brain and morph it
into mash, or is it mush, to match
the collywobbles in the gut during
eight days of frustrating pharma fog thicker
than a full-frat, full-fat Frappuccino?
Science squashes my IQ as I misplace my cell phone, followed by the TV remote, keys and
bank card and my, um…I forget.
As if hijacked by the shakiness of a heat haze, I stumble to the ice machine but
come back with nothing.
Dates and deadlines become meaningingless in a malfunctioning memory bank, and
I fix and refix phrases like “extra much” that sounded Shakespearean when I typed them.
Mercurial emotions mock me like the menacing Space Invaders of my childhood as
innocuously constructive criticism rips up any remnants of calm.
Someone’s profiting from my prescriptions while I’m vantiqued, vanquished by the salvos of adverse effects.

Originally publish in U-Rights Magazine, December 2019.

Crisscrossing North America as a language professional, Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee Adrian Slonaker is fond of opals, owls and fire noodles. Adrian’s work has been published in WINK: Writers in the Know, Ariel Chart, The Pangolin Review and others.

disability/illness, Poems/Poetry

Two poems by Alana Saltz

Posted on February 18, 2020February 17, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Field Trip

For you, Ms. Frizzle, I would fold
my fingers around the curves of my stomach, dig
my nails into the flesh, rip
it open so you can go right in.

Take your big-eyed bus full of curious children
and explore my mysterious body.

Watch organs lighting up a little too bright.
Red blood cells drifting lonely
like they’ve lost their best friends.
Scattered inflammations and infections hiding
in muscle and tissue.

Explain to the children that these are things
that make me hurt
but not enough for anyone to see.

And when people don’t see something,
they don’t do anything.

Teach them that lesson.
It will always apply.

This poem first appeared in Philosophical Idiot and in Alana’s chapbook, The Uncertainty of Light

Halt

I’m enthralled as I watch an actor scribble symptoms
in notebooks and cry when the pain is too strong
and see doctors who seem to know a little too much
about what’s happening, but it’s okay.

I’ll keep watching.
I can’t be that picky.

I ignore all the cues that this will end
the same way as all the other TV
reflections of me, the fun house mirrors
that only show sickness as a distorted, shortened
one-way road.

There was no other ending.
He’s only got one place to go.

His actor family
weeps over his departure
at just the right time
in the series.

His death is art.
My life goes unseen.

This poem first appeared in AlienPub and in Alana’s chapbook, The Uncertainty of Light

ALANA SALTZ (alanasaltz.com) is the editor-in-chief of Blanket Sea, an arts and literary magazine showcasing work by chronically ill, mentally ill, and disabled creators. Her poems have appeared in Occulum, Five:2:One, YesPoetry, Moonchild Magazine, LadyLibertyLit, and more. She’s the author of the poetry chapbook, The Uncertainty of Light. You can visit her website at alanasaltz.com and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @alanasaltz.

disability/illness, Poems/Poetry

Four poems by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Posted on February 16, 2020February 16, 2020 by The Bardo Group Beguines

Song of the Mad

It wouldn’t be so bad
if I lost it in one place
at least I’d know where to find it!
But Noooo…
I have to lose it here!
I have to lose it there!
And just when I find it there
I‘ve lost it again here!!

People wonder why
I never answer my own door
I wonder if they can hear me
breathing from under my covers?

Sometimes I hear myself
calling from another room
Or it could be that other guy
who blames everything on me
Of course it’s never his fault
Nothing ever is!

You see
Nothing is enough for him!
First he impersonates me and steals my best lines
Now he covers his ears with mine
and complains that I don’t sing
with the right inflection!!

As if
he’s the only one
who has to listen to me at night !

Song of the Deaf

What can I say
that you haven’t already heard
before me?
I feel left out

Everyone else has two sides
but when I turn around to face the other way
I still point in the same direction!
Sometimes people talk behind my back
right in front of me!

Of course I must expect that
I try to anticipate everything
otherwise I fall behind
and I have nothing to fall back on!
That is why
my world is suspended in animation–
I use my hands to balance silence
the way stars hold up the sky

A cloud can fall back on the sky
but I must climb deeper
into God’s Ear!
Only…where does the sky begin?
I’d give anything you know
just to hear the color blue

Song of the Blind

It bothers me that my eyes are broken
and God will not fix them

Each morning I watch and listen for Him
and wonder through which doorway of my senses
He will choose to enter next

Each day He and I together
make and remake the bed–
make and remake the world

Mostly it is the same
And that is both my comfort and my fear

I have heard that once someone is truly loved
she is never the same
You cannot imagine how I long for change!
You cannot imagine how I long for certainty!
I can only imagine

I never quite know which
I will stumble into next:
Death that l o n g night
or
Life that l o n g day!

Dear Lord
I am without sight
I am not without vision
Please find me

Song of the Homeless

How long must I go on
pushing my life before me?
My feet are bare and swollen—
they do not know me anymore
And I haven’t yet enough hands
to keep me warm
nor make a pillow for my head

Maybe I’ll grow new fingers tomorrow
so they too can stick out
like a sore thumb

I suppose you think
I can find a better place to hide
than in the poverty of my skin

Do you think I like
carrying my heart around with me
in a basket?

You do not care
that I have forgotten the words
to the songs I am singing
And I am running out of songs

How could you know first-hand
that it is not my death I fear…
only that I should learn of it
second-hand

A former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Josheph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence

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